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Guest post by: Cheryl A. Clausen Become an Author

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It really steams me when some of the “sales gurus” suggest if you want to succeed in sales you have to overcome your fear of selling. They make it sound like a character flaw or something. Let’s separate the truth from the bunk.

Yes, you do hold some irrational fears when it comes to selling. When you were little the adults around you warned you not to talk to strangers, not to go where you don’t belong, and other socially unacceptable behaviors that don’t necessarily apply to you now. You don’t even realizing when you’re responding inappropriately for your current situation because those early behaviors are so ingrained.

If you fear talking to any and all strangers then early conditioning is causing your fear. It isn’t appropriate now. You just have to think it through and realize how those behaviors aren’t helping you now.

However, you have other sales fears and those are the ones you’re led to believe you should overcome. The theory is if certain sales behaviors are uncomfortable and you have fears about those behaviors you should just continue those behaviors until you get so used to them you no longer fear those behaviors. Now think about that for a moment.

It won’t take you very long to realize that’s stupid. If you slam your hand in a car door it hurts. Will it hurt any less if you slam your hand in the car door a second or third time? No, the solution is to quit slamming your hand in the door. Duh!

The same is true with some of your sales fears. You know there are certain things you don’t want to do. Your anxiety level goes up just thinking about taking those actions.

Fear is a natural response that’s telling you to pay attention to your surroundings and proceed with extreme caution. You fear the actions that produce a negative result. Repeating actions that don’t produce that result means getting what you don’t want every time you take the action.

Although in the sales world once in awhile the action you fear will produce a positive result. Further confusing you and causing you to question yourself. Rather than questioning yourself question the action. If the action doesn’t consistently produce the desired result the action, not you, is the problem. Therefore, you need to change the action to produce the desired result. Not surprisingly once your actions produce the desired result your fears instantly go away.

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